I came across something I’d like to share with you all.
There’s an organisation called Reforest Action, which has various reforestation projects around the world, and one of them is in Portugal.
Here’s the page about their project in Marvao and Meda:
You can create a profile on the site and have a tree planted for just €3. Trees can be added whenever you want, or it’s possible to create a subscription to plant trees every month.
When you plant trees they send you a plantation certificate detailing how much carbon you’ve offset. I was surprised to find out that over its lifetime a single tree can offset, on average, 579km driven in a car!
So far I’ve planted 3 trees and intend to make it a regular commitment, as it seems like a very worthwhile cause and a great way of giving back something to a country that has suffered so badly from forest fires.
This seems like a nice idea, thanks for sharing! I have been interested in this issue as well, with our visits to Portugal being largely in the center of the country and near where a lot of fires occur. It looks like they plant a few kinds of trees - which might be a good thing since it appears the Portuguese are somewhat divided on whether the planting of eucalyptus is actually contributing to the conditions that have made fires there so terrible recently. Here’s a good article to introduce that point of view:
Hi @spacemanbananas.
Thanks for posting that interesting article. I read somewhere once that eucalyptus trees are very thirsty and drain the ground of water, which is not good for other vegetation.
By the way, the original planting project at Marvão and Meda is now complete, but there’s a new one opened up near Monchique.
Thanks for posting, Jeremy. I’m interested in projects that reforest Europe and I may investigate this!
It’s true about the eucalyptus trees, by the way … we’ve got tons of them here in California and because of the oil in them, they go up like matchsticks in a fire. I think they were originally brought over from Australia as shade trees and then we realized the problem … they’re beautiful but you have to keep them under control.
